The design of a history of pharmacy course in the bachelor of pharmacy curriculum in the UAE experience

The study of the history of pharmacy is deserving of consideration as a review of the past, so that we may understand the present, and thus be enabled to plan intelligently for the future.1 However, inclusion of this syllabus has suffered a crushing blow in the global context. For example, in the US, Buerki (1981) conducted a far-reaching survey and reported that almost 40% of pharmacy schools offered either required or elective course work in the history of pharmacy, 32% offered orientation courses that contained some historical component, and 29% offered no such course work. Notably, there was a significant decline in the number of pharmacy schools offering this course. Buerki's findings may have prompted the American Council on Pharmaceutical Education to adopt a strong policy statement on teaching the history and social studies of pharmacy later that same year.2 Even in the past, Edward Kremers remarked parenthetically in an 1892 address before the American Public Health Association (APHA) Section on Pharmaceutical Education and Legislation that, "the professional student should at least have a fair knowledge of this history of his profession”.3